Narrative Inquiry Portal Launched

“Narrative inquiry is growing, not only in education, but across the social sciences,” says Dr. Cornelia Hoogland, who supervised the development of the portal. “Since there are many different ways to approach it, there is a need to provide support for students learning to do it.”

The portal offers a FAQ, bibliography, and links to interdisciplinary narrative research centres internationally. What’s innovative is that the site was both constructed for, and by, graduate students. Since 2007, Hoogland and research assistant Natasha Wiebe have worked with students from the online M.Ed. course, 9576 Narrative Inquiry, as well as a narrative discussion group, to develop content. The questions in the FAQ were not only asked, but also answered, by students. The suggested readings include texts by respected experts in the field, as well as student assignments and publications.

Future plans include adding interactive components so that students can revise the FAQ (a la Wikipedia), as well as discuss each other’s research-in-progress.